James' Studio in Florida

Hello everyone! I will start with a little background before i show pictures / ask questions. My Grandparents gave me 2.5 acres of land in Florida recently, and the first thing that poped into my head was, "Heck yea! i can build an awesome studio and no neighbors to worry about!" So i started looking over this forum a few days ago, and most of the studios people are making are inside of a building that is... well... already built. I am starting from scratch, which gives me the ability to build any size studio I want. I just want everyone to know that I know next to nothing when it comes to designing something like a studio. I have started with designing the Control Room first, so this is all i have at the moment. There are no doors yet, because i don't know where the rest of the rooms will go yet. I have not added the ceiling because i have no clue how to design one that will help with reducing sound reflection. So here is what i have so far: I know the text on this one is really small... It was 1920 by 1080 scaled down =P It says: 3' high x 6' 11/16" wide I would appreciate any ideas, or some sample designs that are not just a studio crammed into a house =P Thanks all, James

Hi James, welcome. Well, you don't need strange angles to have a good CR. The most important foundation for a good room is dimensions. There are several 'good' ratios published.. in a nutshell; you should make the Control room at least 2500 cubic feet or 70 cubic meters in volume. The dimensions should support modes down to the bottom of the music spectrum - 20Hz and have a dense and even distribution. Only rectangles will give you this. The walls that are usually seen inside a control room are very thin plywood and/or fabric which is covering treatment calculated to give the enclosure a balanced acoustical environment. I have a few calculators that you can download and use here http://www.jhbrandt.net/pubs.html and also some of my papers. Much excellent info at the GIK site http://www.gikacoustics.com/education.html and Realtraps site http://www.realtraps.com/articles.htm. Cheers, John

Hi, If you could give us a little more info we may be able to offer you some useful advice. How much of a budget are you working with? What do you want to record? How many rooms are you going to need? I understand starting from scratch. I built my building from the ground up. So what resources do you have and what do you require? Steve

Cold wrote:

Hi, If you could give us a little more info we may be able to offer you some useful advice. How much of a budget are you working with? What do you want to record? How many rooms are you going to need? I understand starting from scratch. I built my building from the ground up. So what resources do you have and what do you require? Steve

Thank you all for the replies! =) Steve, I am not concerned with a budget, I am willing to spend whatever it takes to get beautiful and functional studio. Money is not a concern. I mainly record Hard Rock / Metal, Punk Rock, and things like that. That being said, i would also like the ability to record a live Orchestra (like around 40 - 60 players) so i want a large Live room. I am thinking The Control Room, A small room near the Control Room with good heat ventilation for noisy electronics (like computers), a vocal booth, and a large Live room (i want a Baby Grand, full Drums, and plenty of space to do whatever i may need). I have some friends in construction that can help me build this, and i will be willing to buy any needed material and ship it to my location. Right now I am living in California, so I am pretty far off from actually building anything, i just want to get my ideas down on paper. It will probably be a while before I am able move back to Florida to start building. I hope i answered all your questions =P One more thing, how should i go about planning the ceiling? i have no clue what kind is best for reducing sound reflection. Any links to info on studio roofing would be great! Thanks all!

i think a 60 person orchestra requires a fairly good sized space. a room like that probably has 20ft ceilings as a minimum. just thinking out loud this is probably a 4500-6000ft2 facility overall.

And good luck throwing that up in Florida without a budget/plans/you name it, they will want it. Silly Ace, a means to help those that help around here, to help you, would be to move to Florida where the property is, get some shots of the area, get a >budget< this is real life, not a guessing game. As you already have found out, folks will help you here, gratis. But a for instance would be, that Glenn designs a great space, he always does, and then you get to the actual geographical area and find that there is a tree that cannot be moved and all the hours spent mocking this thing up are wasted. No cost to you, by the way, but to all the talented people that helped along the way. Tell us when you get to Florida or PM Mr. Sayers. It's the right thing to do.

xSpace wrote:

And good luck throwing that up in Florida without a budget/plans/you name it, they will want it. Silly Ace, a means to help those that help around here, to help you, would be to move to Florida where the property is, get some shots of the area, get a >budget< this is real life, not a guessing game. As you already have found out, folks will help you here, gratis. But a for instance would be, that Glenn designs a great space, he always does, and then you get to the actual geographical area and find that there is a tree that cannot be moved and all the hours spent mocking this thing up are wasted. No cost to you, by the way, but to all the talented people that helped along the way. Tell us when you get to Florida or PM Mr. Sayers. It's the right thing to do.

Forgive me xSpace. The land is 5 Acres of woods... they gave half of it to my brother to build his house on, and gave me the other half. The reason i want to build my own studio is because I want to own one. I just don't like the feeling of working in someone else's studio like i have been for the past few years. I said before that i am just getting ideas on what to do, so i don't go into it blind when i finally am able to move to Florida and build it. And for a budget, I am willing to dump a million or more into this. Also i am planning to build my own house on the same land. I haven't asked anyone to make designs for me at all.. but i am extremely grateful to Glenn. i was just wanting some ideas and possibly links to designs of high end studios for me to study. I am sorry for not being more clear =( I dont want anyone to "Waste" their time making some really awesome designs. Thanks all for your replies!

If you are looking to throw that kind of cash at it, then I would definitely recommend PMing John, and simply hiring him. It would save you the most amount of headache, and give you the best design in the shortest time. Edit - I guess I made an assumption here that I shouldn't have. If you are attempting to get design ideas together now so that you can truly learn how the inner workings of the studio design as well as "just have one", then my advise is absolutely wrong. However, if you don't want to learn the reasons why studios are built the way they are, and just want a well built studio for the best money, then my advise stands. I didn't want to sound as if I was blowing you off with a quick answer - I made the assumption that you wanted a studio, not necessarily to learn how to design one as well.

bwilkinson wrote:

If you are looking to throw that kind of cash at it, then I would definitely recommend PMing John, and simply hiring him. It would save you the most amount of headache, and give you the best design in the shortest time.

Exactly. It's too much to learn on a forum and with that kind of available cash, it would be inconsiderate to not involve someone of Mr. Sayers worldwide recognized abilities. And I think Australia and Florida are similar in texture ;)

Hi there, Some good reading on serious builds and all the steps involved can be found here: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/photo-diaries-recording-studio-construction-projects/161575-manifold-recording-studio-construction-thread.html and here: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/photo-diaries-recording-studio-construction-projects/341598-bridge-recording-studio-build.html These are on a different forum, if the mods think this is inappropriate, please delete my post. I applaud your approach of wanting to to be involved in the design, and starting to research it this early in the game. In the end, you will need a designer, but the more you know, the better off you will be. Give these two threads a good read. They will give you a good overview of the complexity of a large studio build. Regards, Steve

One other thing that you may want to consider. Two and a half acres isn't nearly as large as you might think - especially for a large studio build. You will definitely have more than enough room to build a good size studio, but from a distance to neighbors, you may be surprised how close you are. As an example, I live on two acres of land, and am designing my studio (ever so slowly). Even with that land, my closest neighbor is 130-150 feet away. A drum set doesn't lose a whole lot of impact at that distance. Two houses down (approximately 400 feet away), there is a band who practices in their pole building - admittedly, it is not acoustically insulated at all - and I can hear them clearly at my house (estimating, I never measured it, but at my house, their volume is still in the 50dB range). Just take that into consideration as to the isolation you will need.